Remote monitoring devices have been developed to deliver warning messages and critical information to remote locations. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,147,601 to Sandelman et al. describes the delivery of messages from remote equipment for periodic preventative maintenance and for catastrophic failure of HVAC equipment. Quite different from HVAC equipment, construction and aerialift machinery apparatus presents a significant risk and danger not only to the operators, but to those in proximity to the machinery. To address these issues, safety devices such as lanyards or safety harness detection sensors, motion and high voltage proximity sensors and other warning devices to protect the operator have been developed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,265,983 to Baillargeon discloses a machinery operator protection system and method, which inhibits the use of machinery unless the operator of the machinery is properly secured with a lanyard and/or body harness to the machinery. Optionally, the method may also include an audible or visual warning alarm to the machinery operator if an attempt is made to use the machinery without proper safety lanyard attachment.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,330,931 to Baillargeon et al. describes a safety lanyard detection sensor and warning device which inhibits operation of the machinery and also can deliver a visual or audible message to the operator that machinery movement is inhibited because of failure to secure the operator with a safety lanyard. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,297,744 also to Baillargeon et al. a warning device delivers messages to the operator to secure their safety lanyard at an initial upward movement of the work platform and delivers messages within the area below the boom and work platform or zone of danger that the boom is moving, expressing that persons below the boom should remain out of the area as the boom descends.
In both Baillargeon U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,330,931 and 6,265,983 the lanyard detection sensor disclosed is located on the lift anchor point and upward movement of the work platform is inhibited via an interlock switch unless the lift operator has attached a safety lanyard to the lift anchor point. An issue in this approach is that the system may be defeated by leaving the safety lanyard attached to the anchor point at all times. An operator may forget or otherwise fail to secure the lanyard to themselves, and can even leave the work platform and in such a situation leave the lanyard on the anchor point allowing operation of the platform without a secure attachment of the lanyard to the body harness of the operator creating a safety hazard. In these real life scenarios, the unprotected lift operators will be able to go up in the work platform without proper utilization of their fall protection apparatus because the interlock sensor has detected the attachment of the lanyard to the anchor point enabling lift movement without the safety lanyard being attached to the harness worn by the lift operator.
The references disclose delivering verbal messages when the lift is descending, warning others below the lift, or when the operator selects upward movement of the lift and the safety lanyard is not attached to the anchor point, the lift will not be operational until the lanyard is attached to the anchor point, but there is no restriction on operation if the lanyard is not attached to the body harness. The references apply strategies to detect a connection of the safety lanyard to the harness and then to the anchor point, but these designs are not readily available to retrofit current lanyard product and therefore present cost prohibitive barriers to adoption of these methods even though benefits in fall prevention may be achieved.
Importantly, this approach of issuing a verbal message only when a fault has occurred may induce the attachment of the safety harness to the anchor point in order to operate the lift, but does not ensure that the lift operator also verifies attachment of the lanyard to their body harness. The limited verbal message may induce action but fails to reinforce this important safety requirement with a fail-safe system and mechanisms as well as through operational monitoring and with a large number of operators working in remote areas or in areas where there is limited or no supervision, there is no disclosure in the references of a way to reinforce and monitor safety procedures, to track safety violations or to subject violators to penalties, fines and other negative ramifications by Supervisory and/or Safety officials at their workplace or by U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and other regulatory agencies charged with enforcement of work platform fall protection safety infractions. This inability to supervise, track and verify adherence to safety protocols may permit operators to bypass and circumvent safety apparatus without acknowledging or understanding that the apparatus has been put into place to prevent accidents that may result in loss of life,
With the widespread use of aerial lift systems, and the critical need for improved methods of training, the references fail to disclose a system which provides audible and/or visual warnings and reinforces safety procedures and training. The references also fail to disclose the monitoring, tracking and analysis of multiple fault conditions. This analysis may be used forensically to evaluate and determine the events that led to an accident, or establish the failure of an operator to adhere to safety protocols and thereby provide an opportunity for training or punishment, and further demonstrate the adherence of an entity to safety procedures and protocols, data that may be used to support the entity before a government agency. The references also do not disclose a monitoring unit capable of monitoring numerous warning devices and sensors cooperatively to provide continual status checks of safety equipment and deliver as necessary appropriate audible and/or visual warnings based on alerts received from this safety equipment. The safety data handling and information flow to the operator is critical where many operators of aerialift booms and the like make many trips up and down in the aerialift work platform while servicing telephone poles, cable TV, power lines hardware, or maintain restocking and inventory from warehouse shelving in retail stores and the like. These scenarios are fraught with situations in which the operator may leave the aerialift basket or platform area to retrieve tools or the like, return to the aerialift work platform, and forget to attach the safety lanyard to the anchor point on the boom or work platform or to his/her body harness. The operator may also fail to identify the proximity of high voltage lines as the work platform is angled and shifted to more easily access the wires and equipment being serviced. The various accident situations which can occur are quite dangerous and can include the operator subsequently falling from an aerialift work platform or being electrocuted from power lines. These accidents tend to be quite severe, resulting in broken bones, head and back injuries, as well as documented cases of permanent paralysis and death.
As a result, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has promulgated rules mandating fall protection standards in the workplace. These standards generally mandate that a safety belt be of a length wherein the worker is not able to move enough within the work platform or basket to fall from the platform and therefore is referred to as a fall restraint system. Other standards provide for a lengthened safety lanyard that provides the operator with additional mobility to perform required tasks however this additional slack may be enough to allow the operator to fall and possibly be held hanging by the lanyard and therefore is referred to as a fall arrest system. While these standards generally require the use of fall protection and warning systems and methods in conjunction with the use and operation of aerialift booms and the like, they do not dictate any positive system of enforcement regarding the use of these fall protection and warning systems nor do any systems exist to properly capture and track infractions by operators failing to secure a safety belt or properly use and react to other safety equipment.
The alternative to the use of positive enforcement has been the use of human safety monitoring personnel (safety monitors) whose job it is to inspect the workplace and inform workers of potential fall hazards. This approach is obviously only effective in situations where the worker is operating in a group context and would be ineffective for service workers that work alone such as telecommunications technicians, electrical workers, arborists, warehouse workers, painters, light and signal maintenance workers, window washers, or maintenance construction workers for example. The use of written fall protection plans and fall protection training are similarly ineffective in this context. Within the context of aerialift work platforms and the like (where the potential for serious injury resulting from an accidental fall is the greatest), the policies and procedures of OSHA seem to have the least potential for affecting an acceptable solution to this serious safety problem.
Thus, the existing methodologies do not address the human factor involved in the operation of elevating machinery which can pose potentially deadly falls and other hazards to their operators. In fact, government regulations and safety training are insufficient to ensure that safety devices are properly used or in fact used at all. Unfortunately, with the rapid expansion of the construction, telecommunications, and cable TV industries, the use of aerialift work platform devices has skyrocketed, resulting in a marked increase in accidental falls and subsequent severe injuries to workers in these fields. It is obvious from the record that fall protection training as well as policies and procedures for fall protection are inadequate to solve this problem alone.
While the use of lanyards and other fall prevention devices is widespread within the construction industry, there appears to be no art relevant to systems and methods that permit the use of these devices to be mandated or monitored to ensure their proper use. As a result, accidental falls continue to injure and disable thousands of workers per year.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method of reinforcing the safe and efficient use of aerialift work platform safety devices and the like, and which does not interfere with mechanical operation of the machinery, so that the operator of such a device is properly secured to the aerialift work platform with a body harness and attached lanyard and the work platform or basket door is properly secured. The operator must also be properly aware of fault conditions in safety equipment such as warnings issued from proximity monitors that high voltage wires are within the work vicinity or that wind speed is excessive creating a dangerous condition. Other warning systems may signal the load of the work platform or basket exceeds an acceptable weight limit and/or a stability warning device that monitors the steepness of grading of the area where a truck with lift or other lift device without a truck is positioned. A further warning system that may be worn by the operator is a motion sensor or “man down” warning system that would signal if non-movement of the operator was detected over a period of time, due to for example to a fall or other injury. The use of these and other safety equipment must be understood by an operator to be effective, so that when an audible or visual warning signals of a dangerous situation proper steps are taken to prevent accidents and injury.
In addition to tracking and reinforcing safety procedures and protocols, a monitoring and data transmission system could increase productivity, lower costs and improve efficiencies. Access to schematic information, previous repair reports, availability of inventory and other information could allow an operator at a remote location such as in servicing a downed power line to better determine efficient strategies for repair and/or photograph the location and transmit this data for further analysis and suggestions by supervisors. Further, the system may be integrated with a video monitor to monitor and document work.
A monitoring and data transmission system could effectively accept and record data from of all safety devices and provide proper procedural steps needed to assist the operator to properly react to a variety of fault conditions and/or provide additional information to evaluate field conditions and equipment repair. Such a system should minimize the operational impact on the use of existing lanyard devices and other safety equipment by not requiring the operator/worker to perform extra safety related functions to affect mandatory use and understanding of the equipment. Such a system should also provide warnings and instruction to the operator when a lanyard device is not secured or another fault condition exists, while normally not interfering in operation of the machinery and equipment, unless entirely necessary. Such a system should further track and log safety data including misuse and infractions where an operator bypasses or delays in the use or reaction to a safety warning thereby notifying training personnel and others of the lack of adherence by their operators to safety regulations. A further important feature is that such a system be able to integrate and adapt with existing systems to remove barriers that may prevent adoption of an improved safety system within the aerialift work platform field.